1 . Electricity has started flowing from the Hornsea 2 wind farm, which will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm when it is complete. Located in the ocean off the UK’s east coast, it is unlikely to hold the title long, however. The expansion of onshore wind has flattened out, but offshore is in the rapid growth phase,and some huge projects are under development and consideration.

When complete, Hornsea 2 will consist of 165 wind turbines (涡轮机), each with a peak capacity of 8 MW. At 1,320 MW, Hornsea 2 will take the title of world’s largest from the neighboring Homsea 1, which has smaller but more numerous turbines, for a total capacity of 1,218 MW.

The project came in the fortuitous-timing. The possibility that limitations in gas supply and a cold winter could seriously disturb electricity networks in the UK, causing anxiety for months. Even a small part of Hornsea’s eventual production will help reduce that danger. On its first morning, it contributed to almost 50 percent of Britain’s electricity.

Meanwhile, the development coincides (类似) with China’s largest offshore wind farm, Jiangsu Qidong, which reached full operation a day later. At a total of 802 MW, Jiangsu Qidong is behind either Hornsea stage, but it is twice the size of the existing offshore wind farm outside Europe. North American wind farms usually standardize with a single size of turbine, but Jiangsu Qidong uses seven models.

Neither Hornsea nor Jiangsu Qidong compares to the giant wind farms being developed by Denmark and South Korea,and the more potential giant off Iceland. Even before those come to fruition, Hornsea’s third stage—with 2,400 MW soon to start construction—will leave them well behind.

Even with operations beginning at these wind farms,offshore wind accounts for less than 10 percent of global wind production. It’s also currently more expensive. However, prices are falling faster for offshore, as turbines get larger and experience grows. It is anticipated that the next round of UK wind farms, instead of requiring subsidies (补贴), will return money to the public.

2 . As parents, most of us are keen to encourage a love of reading in our children but sometimes it can be hard to know how to do this. All four of these books contain loads of useful tips about how to get your kids into reading and stand out as my favourite books. The books should be widely available in libraries and bookshops. You can also buy them online with free postage anywhere in the world through the Book Depository.

Rocket Your Child into Reading

Best known as an Australian children's author, Jackie French also struggled at school with reading and writing and knows first-hand all about the inpact these stuggles have on a child's self- esteem and atiude to school and learning. In this book , Jackie looks at the dfferent ways children learn. She has some wonderful ideas about how parents can help stnggling readers.

Reading Magic

The book is beautifully witten with lots of iformation about the importance of reading aloud to children. As well as being an author of the most beautiful picture books for young children, Mem Fox is also a teacher and literacy advocate so her advice is backed up with lots of research. Reading Magic is quite a short book, full of hunour and very easy to read.

The Reading Bug

Before Paul Jennings started writing flltime, he was a special-education teacher and then a speech pathologist. Like Mem, Paul believes parents are the best reading teachers in the world and that parental involvement is key to a child learming to read and use language. This is another easy - to - read book which presents simple strategies to show how parents can use books to enrich their children's lives.

The Read-Aloud Handbook

This book was originally published in 1979 and is still in print. It contains many ideas to encourage reading in children. Originally a journalist, Jim Trelease has some interesting things to say about the US education system, with its emphasis on testing almost to the exclusion of all else. Like Mem Fox, Jim is a passionate advocate for children's literacy and the importance of reading to children.

5 . Humans have been exploring the infinite abyss (深渊) beyond Earth’s atmosphere. When astronauts explore the vast expanse of outer space, they need to wear high-tech spacesuits to protect them from the freezing conditions of the universe.

Hollywood movies have idealized the iconic suit, its design leading the masses to believe it’s an outfit that can be slipped on within minutes. In fact, the spacesuit which is made up of nearly a half dozen different components and can have up to 16 layers is its own fully functioning spacecraft that takes hours to put on and requires help from one’s colleagues.

The astronauts on the Artemis missions, NASA’s next program to send the first woman and the first person of color to the moon, will wear the latest spacesuit, called the exploration extravehicular mobility unit, also known as xEMU, according to NASA.

Each spacesuit has a portable life support system, which includes a water tank for the cooling garment and carbon dioxide removal system to regulate body temperature, remove excess heat and maintain the astronauts’ health, said Richard Rhodes, the deputy lead for xEMU pressure garment development at NASA. A two-way radio system is also included so the astronauts can communicate during the missions.

“When the Apollo astronauts walked on the moon, they couldn’t bend over and pick up a rock,” said NASA astronaut Mike Fincke. Fortunately, spacesuits have come a long way since then and have a more flexible structure with gloves. The gloves are one of the most complicated parts of the spacesuit, said Cathleen Lewis, curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. “Gloves are very difficult to design to be protective and also allow the manual dexterity (灵巧) that astronauts need to do meaningful work.” she noted.

The spacesuits will also be getting some upgrades for the latest lunar mission. Richard Rhodes’s team is working on the spacesuit that will allow for more movement to explore the rough terrain of the moon while still being strong enough to protect the wearer.

6 . Though writing by hand is increasingly being overshadowed by the ease of computers, a new study finds handwriting helps people learn certain skills surprisingly faster and significantly better than learning the same material through typing or watching videos.

Brenda Rapp, a professor of cognitive science in Johns Hopkins University, led an experiment, in which 42 people were taught the Arabic alphabet, split into three groups of learners: writers, typers and video watchers. Everyone learned the letters one at a time by watching videos of them being written along with hearing names and sounds. After being introduced to each letter, the three groups would attempt to learn what they just saw and heard in different ways. The video group got an on-screen flash of a letter and had to recognize it. The typers would have to find the letter on the keyboard. The writers had to copy the letter with pen and paper. After as many as six sessions, the writing group reached this level of proficiency (熟练) faster than the other groups.

Next the researchers wanted to determine to what extent the groups could generalize this new knowledge. In other words, they could all recognize the letters, but could anyone really use them like a professional by writing with them, using them to spell new words and using them to read unfamiliar words? The writing group was best — decisively — in all of those things.

Rapp says it’s because handwriting reinforces the visual and aural lessons. The simple act of writing by hand provides a perceptual-motor (感知运动) experience that unifies what is being learned about the letters (their shapes, their sounds, and their motor plans), which in turn creates richer knowledge and fuller true-learning.

Although the participants in the study were adults, the researchers expect they’d see the same results in children. The findings have implications for classrooms, where pencils and notebooks have taken a backseat in recent years to tablets and laptops.

7 . I will be the first to admit that my German skills are quite poor. I decided to minor in German because I _________ the language. However, I was not particularly good at_________it. The grammar and word order confused me. All the nouns have genders, and it is hard to_________which noun is which. After two years of study, I still communicated in _________German, so I signed up to_________in Germany to complete my degree. It was the_________term I would ever have.

Once in Germany, I found the German I’d learned in university wasn’t _________for everyday conversation. My book knowledge fell by the wayside and I was always on edge at school and _________whether the professors would call on me in class. I only relaxed a little around my eight roommates, who were willing to speak German_________ to me and didn’t seem to __________my mistakes.

All the classes were in German and__________, and history was the worst. The professor spoke rather __________ . I sat in the front, took notes and even recorded the lectures, but nothing__________ I had no idea what the class was about.

At the end of the term, it took all of my__________to ask my history professor for a form saying I’d attended the class. He said yes and told me to__________at his office at a certain time. I’d like to say I got the form and took it back to my university to get my credit , __________I didn’t. I was too afraid to be in his office and let him see how __________ I could really understand. I was sure I was the only one in the class at such a__________level. So I gave up the meeting. Years have passed, but I still remember how it felt to__________so hard to learn another language. I think my __________ that term taught me just as much as my successes.

8 . Golden Generation

A national team, mostly consisting of teenagers, pushed China to its biggest-ever medal achievement at the Winter Olympics. At the same time, a series of breakthroughs at the Games _________ the country’s emergence as a much more well-rounded force on the ice and snow.

_________ the heroics of teenage sensation Gu Ailing and seasoned aerials(空中技巧滑雪)masters Xu Mengtao and Qi Guangpu, China _________ four gold to top the freestyle skiing medal standings for the first time after its Winter Olympic debut in 1980.

Gu Ailing also became the first athlete _________, and the youngest _________, to win three medals(golds in Big Air, halfpipe and silver in slopestyle)in three different freeski _________ at the Olympics, throwing her to international super-star reputation as the _________ of Beijing 2022.

Needless to say, another teenager star, Su Yiming, also became a _________   name by winning China’s first snowboarding gold medal in Big Air after claiming a silver in slopestyle. Su’s _________ helped the host finish a highest-ever third on the Games’ overall medal standings, ____________ nine gold, four silver and two bronze-its biggest-ever medal achievement at the Winter Games. China’s ____________ best was a tally of 11, including five gold, at the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

“The ____________ of the new generation on the Olympic stage, even seeing the emergence of teenagers, ____________ a great future for winter sports in our country,” said Li Yang, manager of China’s Big Air, slopestyle and halfpipe national programs.

“With winter sports becoming popular in our country amid the fast social and ____________ development, I believe more and more young people will ____________ skis and snowboards to enjoy the sport, just as young as Su and Gu did when they were little, which will ____________ expand the talent pool for our future national programs,”Li said.

The Beijing Winter Games also ____________ the first time that China’s snow sports teams outperformed the country’s traditionally strong ice sports squads in the medal numbers, securing investment in high-performance training programs and ____________ the foundation for even better results at the next Winter Games in Italy.

“____________ we keep the tendency going, I believe we will ____________ a stronger performance in four years' time at the next Olympics in 2026,” said Yang Yang, China’s first Winter Olympic gold medalist, in women’s short-track speed skating at the 2002 Games.

At the 138th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the     1    (decide) was adopted to change the Olympic motto (格言) for the first time in history. With the word “together”     2    (add) to the phrase “Faster, higher, stronger”, the president of the organization, Thomas Bach, called the incident     3     landmark (里程碑) event. The original version of the motto, written by French priest Henri Didon,     4    (approve) at the first Olympic Congress in 1894. The phrase was so liked by the first President of the IOC, Pierre de Coubertin, that he decided to make     5     the slogan (口号) of the Games. Now the slogan     6    (complete) sounds like “Faster, higher, stronger—together.” The press officer of the committee, Mark Adams, explained to reporters the meaning of the idea,     7    (stress) that an athlete cannot be faster, taller and stronger without a team around him. The Olympic     8    (value) lie not only in individual excellence but also in the environment, the team around the athlete. In the Olympic Games, it is not victory     9     participation that matters. Former speed skater Svetlana Zhurova positively assessed the innovation. However, most of the experts interviewed reacted calmly     10     what happened.